Who really loses from the House Republicans’ plan for a border-adjusted corporate tax?

Here’s one possibility: Americans who own assets denominated in foreign currencies. Here’s why.

The loudest complaints come from importers, who worry they’ll have to raise prices or face tax bills larger than their profits. But retailers, oil refiners and other importers only lose if the plan doesn’t work as intended. Economists project that the border adjustment—applying the U.S. corporate tax to imports and removing it from exports—would cause the dollar to rise. If that happens completely, importers would simply pay less for goods and more in taxes and land exactly where they started.

In that case, the real impact is the one-time loss caused by the dollar’s rise—a recent estimate says this would amount to wealth drop of about 13% of gross domestic product, or more than $2 trillion.

“These are the kinds of side effects that drug companies describe very quickly in their advertisements for the latest pharmaceutical,” said Ed Kleinbard, a University of Southern California law professor and former chief of staff at the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. “This will be a wealth diminution that lasts for more than four hours.”

Among those at risk are pension funds, which have domestic and foreign assets and purely domestic liabilities, saidStan Veuger, a resident scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute.

“Pension funds are the most clear-cut cases of U.S. holders of foreign capital that will get hit,” said Mr. Veuger, who has noted that Scottish golf courses owned by Americans (such as President-elect Donald Trump) would also lose value. “Of all the features of this, this is one of the things I’m most certain about.”

What’s tricky is figuring out when and how the dollar rise is happening. Theoretically, the effect should be priced in by the time the border adjustment takes effect, because currency markets would push the dollar up as the plan looks more likely.

But divining those moves from other factors at work in currency markets is tricky, and people don’t always complain about those effects when markets fluctuate.

The currency has been rising since the election and it declined when Mr. Trump criticized the border adjustment plan this week, but he also warned against a strong dollar in general at the same time. Mr. Trump later said the idea was still being discussed.

“It’s hard to see what fraction of that appreciation is because of expectations about this border adjustment,” said Oleg Itskhoki, an economics professor at Princeton University.

Mr. Kleinbard said he doesn’t think the House tax plan is fatally flawed because of the one-time wealth effect, though it’s not his preferred international tax proposal.

“The proponents of the tax need to be more candid in acknowledging this multi-trillion-dollar cost inherent in their proposal,” he said, “and to convince all of us that it’s worth that cost to get whatever efficiency benefits they believe the tax will bring with it.”

Assuming foreign currency markets are efficient today is like believing in the progressive money fairy.

The current reality is not sustainable economically or politically. Telling an American working two part time jobs his tv is $20 cheaper?

There is an opportunity for Mexico. To be the American manufactures' other than other than America export capacity.

The strength of the American dollar is in part due to just how unstable hostile mercantilist our trading 'partners' economies are. Which can only be sustainably correct by their consumer enjoying more American products. Beef, pork poultry is an easy first wave.

Was this article written by a lobbyist for an import company? How about the dramatic increase in wealth and purchasing power for the vast majority of Americans who would benefit from a stronger dollar? Too busy to put that part in?

Before our electronic transfer money system, the only way most Americans came out ahead in currency exchanges was the black market. One way or another, people who understand the system will come out ahead. Isn't that how the food chain operates?

America has elected a would-be dictator as president, the European Union is disintegrating, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May won’t last long as her nation prepares to secede from the EU, and China is poised to become an even more repressive society, the investor told Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua from the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“It is unlikely that Prime Minister May is actually going to remain in power,” Soros said. She has a divided cabinet and base and Britons are in denial about the economic impact of Brexit, he said.

The huge problem now is China economy growing China’s fourth-quarter economic growth rate of 6.8% reversed a downward trend in quarterly growth figures after more than two years, ensuring the world’s second-largest economy hit 6.7% growth for the year, within its 6.5% to 7% target.

Such high growth in real-estate and car sales isn’t sustainable, and the government will likely accelerate infrastructure spending to offset the effects of an expected slowdown in property investment. Overall, the economic growth rate will still likely be around 6.5% this year, as decision-makers are determined to keep growth at a steady pace. Larry Hu, Macquarie Group

We expect real GDP growth to slow modestly to 6.6% on year in the first quarter, with the property sector dragging down expansion after being a driver of growth in 2016. Fiscal policy will remain expansionary to fund infrastructure investment and fill the void left by the cooling property market, but we don’t expect it to completely offset this drag. We maintain our forecast of a 6.5% GDP growth this year from 6.7% in 2016. Yang Zhao and Wendy Chen, Nomura

Investment momentum picked up in the fourth quarter of 2016, after having weakened midyear, with growth of fixed-asset investment rising to 7.9%, supported by some improvement in corporate investment. Looking ahead, we expect GDP growth to slow to 6.3% in 2017. High uncertainty means that Chinese economic policy makers will want to keep their options open. But at least the reasonable current growth momentum gives policy some leeway. Louis Kuijs, Oxford Economics

The stabilization of the economy was largely due to the rally in the property market, which has triggered concern over asset bubbles. In the coming years, China will put more effort into balancing growth, financial risks and external challenges especially from a Trump administration. We believe that the overall growth profile will remain stable, but the yuan will continue to weaken.

@George Chapman You are correct! The effort for this article could not have taken 30 minutes! This is especially clear when one considers that quotations from other individuals comprise about half of the article. These fluff articles are sadly becoming more and more common place in the WSJ.

Sometimes I think the WSJ is putting these types of articles out to see what issues raise a lot of comments, and then they will put someone on the subject for a follow up article.